The present invention relates to a musical string.
The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
Musical strings have a string core, which is loaded upon stretching of the musical string, and which carries and/or receives the so-called tuning weight. Musical strings for bowed instruments for lower pitches generally have wrappings or winding layers, to increase the mass coating of the musical string.
Musical strings are components which are loaded up to the material limits in operation. The phenomenon that musical strings can sometimes tear is known to musicians. For acoustic reasons, it is better to operate musical strings close to the tensile strength of the core material, since it has been shown that the bending stiffness of a material decreases the more strongly it is loaded, and a low bending stiffness is necessary for generating suitable overtones, therefore a fundamental oscillation with integer harmonic oscillations.
Such strongly loaded components and/or materials fatigue more rapidly, however, than components and/or materials which—as is widespread, for example, in general mechanical engineering—are dimensioned for so-called fatigue strength with additional safeguards, and/or in the case of which such dimensioning is possible. The material fatigue also changes the sound and the playability and/or response of the musical string, wherein the type of the sound changes depends greatly on the construction and manufacturing of the musical string. The sound and/or the playability of the musical string shifts with time in this case increasingly away from the actual and/or original sound character of the respective musical string.
It has been shown that in particular modern high-tech musical strings having plastic fiber core, using which very good results can be achieved with respect to sound and playing technique, can be particularly susceptible to such aging effects. In this case, not only do the clearest sound changes occur in such musical strings, but they also take place more rapidly than in, for example, classical steel core strings, as have been known for over 100 years now.
These changes in sound and playing technique of the musical string force the musician to replace the musical strings, or to accept losses in the quality of his musical performance. The frequently required changes of the musical strings represent a substantial burden for professional musicians. Furthermore, it has been shown that amateur musicians presently intentionally accept losses in sound and response in favor of a lengthened service life, in order to have to replace the strings less often.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to provide an improved musical string which obviates prior art shortcomings and which has good properties with respect to sound and playing technique, and also a long service life.